You’re Next: A Confused, Yet Fun Offering

Your reception of You’re Next depends largely on the type of horror film you’re expecting. A terrifying addition to the home invasion subgenre? A throwback to the slasher flicks of the Eighties? Or a tongue-in-cheek, comedic send-up of conventions befitting its indie pedigree? You’re Next contains elements of all three, but it fulfills the last definition with the most consistency. And although consistency is not one of You’re Next’s strengths, the movie has enough side-splitting laughs, unexpected twists, and outlandish violence to satisfy the shout-at-the-screen crowd on a Friday night, while paving the way for new horror films to follow its lead.

After working with them on A Horrible Way to Die, director Adam Wingard again casts directors Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies) and Amy Seimetz (Sun Don’t Shine), along with Ti West (House of the Devil), making You’re Next one of the finest exemplars of the recently christened “mumblegore” label for its cast and crew pedigree alone.

The story revolves around the thirty-fifth wedding anniversary of Paul and Aubrey Davidson (the latter played by Barbara Crampton of Re-Animator fame) as they celebrate with their children at their conveniently secluded country estate. First to arrive are semi-employed professor Crispian (A.J. Bowen) and his former TA, thoroughly Australian girlfriend Erin (Sharni Vinson), whose undisclosed survivalist skills will come into play later. Rounding out the siblings are Drake, Aimee, and Felix, with their significant others Kelly, Tariq, and Zee (“Z-E-E”). After the parents ignore creaks upstairs and go ahead with their plans to stage a family dinner, the convivial atmosphere quickly degenerates, first into acrimony, then into an onslaught of crossbow arrows. Thankfully for her and the audience, Erin proves that she is not to be taken down by tiger-, lamb- and fox-mask-wearing killers, and turns the tables as only an Aussie chick can.

In one of the film’s most refreshing exchanges not involving trip wire or screwdrivers, Drake belittles Tariq’s underground filmmaking ambitions, saying that he should go into commercials. The exchange is a meta wink to the subsection of the audience recognizing that these actor-directors have likely heard those condescending admonitions before. Such intelligence does not always run throughout You’re Next; once the killers make their presence known, it becomes clear that an ignorance of many of the basic rules for horror survival (as laid out in Scream, to which the film has been misleadingly compared) must run in the Davidson family tree. Motivations get thrown out the window in the name of narrative convenience. Why is Erin sent to the unfriendly neighbor’s house to pick up a gallon of milk? Why does Felix so quickly declare that the murderers must have put a cell phone jammer in place? Why is the matriarch, shown to be paranoid in her everyday existence, allowed to rest in her bedroom, a confirmed nexus of animal mask activity? These questions become almost irrelevant when the more ingenious set-pieces play out, from hilarious disagreements among siblings, one with arrows in his back, to an escape plan involving serious discussion of who can run the fastest, to finally a Home Alone-esque weapon-fashioning that includes wooden planks with nails. The script from Simon Barrett, also returning from A Horrible Way to Die and V/H/S, is clever so often, I wanted to overlook the moments when it teeters dangerously toward the idiotic side of implausibility.

You’re Next proves that a horror film can get away with an array of unsympathetic WASP characters provided that they are offset by one immensely likable, take-no-prisoners female to save the day. It also demonstrates that an effectively horrific opening scene can be built on little more than a young woman out in a country house and the eery repetition of an obscure ditty like Dwight Twilley Band’s “Looking for the Magic,” the film’s unofficial anthem. And although the final unveiling of the killers and their motives may not be entirely satisfying, the subsequent Evil Dead level of comic gore practically compensates in entertainment value. Wingard and Barrett throw enough elements at the screen with an appreciation for horror and a gung-ho willingness to play with or disregard its many conventions; the elements that do work, work so well that they overshadow those which quickly fade in one’s estimation of the film upon its blood-soaked, witty ending.

Perhaps the reception greeting You’re Next would have been different if it had come out, as planned, in 2011. Like Cabin in the Woods, to which it should be more deservedly compared, a 2-year delay may have lessened the film’s allegedly groundbreaking status, in this case now that it follows so closely on the heels of other home invasion fare like The Purge. Regardless, it points the way to a new breed of low-budget horror unafraid to combine disparate sources in the name of creating something that the audience hasn’t seen before. With 24 Exposures, the next outing for Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett, and Joe Swanberg – this time trading their respective director, writer, and actor hats – we have the promise of a pulpy mix of fetish photography and violence subject matter that is sure to provoke. You’re Next signals the mainstream tipping point of mumblegore, a genre which, provided it can maintain consistency and intelligence in subsequent fare, promises to cements its label as a major harbinger of quality horror.